Heart of Stars
by Grav
Summary: How Tauriel of the Woodland Realm became Tauriel of Middle Earth.
1. Prologue: The Beginnings of Peace

**AN**: I have been waiting to write this fanfic since we first heard that Tauriel existed. Obviously it's taken a few turns since then, as we learned more about her and as the movie re-awakened everyone's 17-year-old Legolas fangirl, but for the most part this is going to be about Ladies Doing Stuff.

**Spoilers**: The entire canon, really.

**Disclaimer**: You know how many times I've typed out that I don't own this stuff? I don't. But it's a lot.

**Rating**: PG

**Summary**: How Tauriel of the Woodland Realm became Tauriel of Middle Earth.

* * *

Legolas stood on one of Minas Tirith's many promontories and looked out over a city bathed in starlight. The Enemy was gone, defeated, and while the Mirkwood Prince knew that his heart would never be completely easy now that he had heard the gulls cry on the shores of the sea, he was as still and as content as he had ever been.

Below him, the city slept a well-earned slumber. Only a few torches gave light to the Night Watch, marring the silvery starlight with sooty orange. The White City was quiet at last.

Though he could not see the forest he called home from his lookout, it was very much in his thoughts. Somewhere beneath those great boughs, he knew that his father strove against the remnants of the forces of dark. Surely, soon there would be word.

"Will you not go to you sleep, my lord of the Greenwood?" said a voice from behind him. It was almost familiar, but not quite.

"I do not require it, my lord Steward," he said. "And now that the sky is clear, I find enough rest in looking at the stars."

"You must have been an interesting traveling companion," Faramir said. He rested his gauntleted hands on the battlements and looked out over his city.

"It was an unusual combination of people," Legolas admitted. "I do not think we will see its like again; there will not ever be a need."

"And yet you will elves to Ithilien," Faramir said, "to dwell alongside the Men I bring with me."

"And one dwarf, in all likelihood," Legolas added.

"Elves and dwarves," said Faramir. "Who would have guessed, when the Enemy drove your people apart, that his malice would also serve to bring you back together, to fight against him as allies on the field of battle?"

"I had not considered it in that light," Legolas admitted.

"You did not think peace would come?" Faramir asked.

"I knew it would," Legolas said. "I saw it begin."

In the dark of night, the elf prince's eyes were bright with starlight. That emanation unnerved the best of Men when they saw it in the Lady of the Golden Wood, or in the Lord Glorfindel, but in Legolas, it was a spark that promised warm hearths and safe keeps against the careful watch of night.

"When the great wyrm was slain?" Faramir asked, looking to the North.

"Before that," Legolas said. "In my father's dungeons."

It seemed an odd statement, and even in the dark, Legolas could see the puzzlement on Faramir's face.

"An elf-captain, a friend," he explained, an expression of old feeling on his visage that could not be adequately given words, "softened her heart to a dwarf prince there. I did not know it then, as I was still caught up in my father's preconceptions, but that is when I saw the beginning of peace."

"Does your lady ride to war as mine does?" asked Faramir, ever the discerning eye.

"She does," Legolas said. "But she is not my lady. She is my captain, and my friend. We have both left our forest and been changed by the leaving, but our paths diverged long ago.

"Perhaps not so much," Faramir said after a moment. "You have softened your heart to a dwarf as well."

"I shudder to think of my father's opinion of that," Legolas said ruefully. "Gimli is of Durin's line! And a lord of Erebor! And yet I do not wish for my heart to harden again."

"No more will his, I think," Faramir said. "Together you will make such marvels as to rival the great dwarf and elven craftsmen of old."

"I do not think we shall make anything so fine," Legolas said.

"Fine things got us into this," Faramir said. "Rather I meant good things, of practical use."

"That we shall do," Legolas said. "The King of Men has returned, and for the love we bear, we both shall serve him all his days."

"My father would have words to say on that matter as well," Faramir said. There was a new grief in his voice, and an older one was well, but both were healing.

"The world is new," Legolas said. "And we must be new in thought and deed, or the old perils will return."

"Indeed we shall," Faramir agreed. "Do you think that in your heart there is room for the Steward and his wife, that we may all serve the new days together?"

Legolas took his hand and smiled. Above them, the stars sang a new song.

* * *

TBC...


	2. The Web and The Weave

**Chapter 1 – The Web and the Weave**

Tauriel watched as the last of the dwarves were hustled into cells, magicked doors clanging shut behind them. They were everything she had ever been told: angry, selfish and small. A voice inside her, the one that argued with its King to venture out of the forest and destroy the spiders at their source, pointed out that the dwarves had clearly been on the road for some time, and suggested that perhaps she should not judge them for their appearance. She ignored it. Now was not the time for doubt in where her duties lay. They were dwarves and trespassers. They would be locked up.

The youngest of them drew her attention. He was afraid, and unlike the others, too impetuous to hide his feelings. It was something she had been accused of often enough. His attempt at innuendo did not shock her, but her own fiery response did. When she removed the key in his prison door and turned to face Legolas, she thought she might find him smiling at her joke, but he glowered instead, and barked at her as though she was the greenest of his warriors instead of his captain.

"He is tall for a dwarf, don't you think?" she said, faced with her prince's ire.

"He is still ugly," Legolas replied, biting off the words.

Perhaps she should not needle him so. Her prince had enough on his mind, after all.

She did not have time to really clean up before the King summoned her, but she made the attempt. When word came that she was not to go to the throne room, she knew it would be an unpleasant meeting. Thranduil's personal guard were loyal, but he did not trust even them to hear the words she knew she was bound to say.

She did not often see the King uncrowned. It did not soften his countenance. Perhaps he had worn the forest helm so long that even in its absence it still left its mark upon his brow. Tauriel hesitated before she entered. Perhaps he did not mean for her to see him thus, amidst his preparations for the evening's celebration, but then he called her in, and in she went.

It was more uncomfortable than she had feared. They had exchanged these words before, and she had said them to Legolas too, and still nothing changed. Her King berated her for a perceived shortcoming, and when she protested and offered a solution, he waved her away. This time, however, he added his scorn to her interactions with his son, catching her completely off her guard, and forcing her to all but flee from his presence.

Later, as she scrubbed the last of the wretched webs from her hair, she wondered if the prison warden would have thought to feed his prisoners before skiving off to the party himself. It was not, she assured herself, to see the dwarf again, to see if he really was as base as she'd been told, or if there could be something more to his kind.

Most of the dwarves slept, empty bowls beside their doors indicating that they had at least been fed. He was awake though, and as full of chipped bark as he had been earlier. It was not until he dropped his talisman, and she saw genuine fear in his eyes that she would not return it, that she understood why she had come to see him.

The Silvan Elves, her people, were young. They were less powerful than their King, though they did not chafe against his rule, which held the forest fast, or did so usually. This dwarf was also young, by the counting of years of his own kind, and infinitely so by the count of hers, but he was a prince too, of no lesser standing than Legolas. And he did not seem to hate her on sight, however much he tried.

And he had seen the stars, far more of them than she had. His wanderings had taken him south and east, to where the skies shone with different lights, lights that never reached her forest, no matter which of its borders she went to. She told him of their celebrations of that light, and of the reasoning behind it, and when he ran out of stars, he told her instead of wonders that could be found underground.

Tauriel listened, and learned, and felt something stir inside of her that she could not name.

* * *

Legolas drained his cup, and looked to his father. Resplendent in silver and bronze, Thranduil commanded attention and held what was given with ease. He did not smile as he watched his people drink and dance, but he did not frown either. It was in that neutral face that Legolas took the most comfort. It meant that, for the moment, his father was content, and would not seek him out.

The cries and shouts from the lower tables were growing more raucous by the moment, as the Silvan Elves took their wine with less and less water. Legolas looked about for Tauriel, who could at least be counted on to maintain a level head, but could not find her. When he saw the warden call out for more wine, he knew immediately where she would be. He turned away from the table and went out of the Hall, following the stairs down and down until he reached the level where the dwarves were being held.

He heard them long before he saw them, though his eyes were equally sharp in the dark. Their voices echoed off the cavernous walls, soft and light. These were not words of captive and guard. These were the words of friends.

Legolas stood out of her sight, and listened. He could hear every word, every soft laugh. She gave away their history as though it were nothing, and though the dwarf replied in kind, Legolas did not consider it an even trade.

There was a noise from behind him, and he jumped and clung to the side of the wall. The dark kept him from sight, unless someone was looking for him; he had no wish to be discovered listening by the warden, who was shambling half-drunkenly towards his charges. Below, Tauriel heard too, and excused herself to the dwarf.

Legolas retreated back to the Hall, where his father greeted him with one perfectly raised eyebrow. Decade of practice prevented him from wincing. There was outcry at the lower tables as the wine was running short. He watched the empty barrels be taken away, and lamented that his evening probably could not get very much worse.

* * *

TBC...


	3. The Oak and The Lake

**Chapter 2 - The Oak and the Lake**

Tauriel prised the blade out of the oak branches that framed the doorway to her quarters. She wondered, as she had when she was an elfling and still listened to all the tales that were whispered under starlight, if the King really could tell whenever a tree or leaf in his realm was harmed. Legolas certainly could not. She'd regretted throwing the knife as soon as it had left her fingers. The living tree had done her no wrong, and bore up the ceiling besides, but by then it was too late. All she could do was murmur an apology and bring to bear what limited green-magic she had on the wound.

The dwarf had taken a worse cut. She wondered if he knew it yet, if his kin knew how to treat it. She had her doubts.

There were whispers in the lower halls that Thranduil would seal the gates. They'd be safe inside – the King had that much power – but the world outside the forest would be left on its own. It would burn, and Thranduil would not care. He sought to stay apart, as Turgon had in Gondolin. Legolas now carried a blade that showed how well that had worked out for the elves of old. Tauriel did not think that Thranduil's fate would be different if he stayed within the walls.

At least thirty orcs trailed the dwarves, and she was but one elf. Tauriel smiled. There was some truth to Thranduil's accusation: Legolas would follow her, and then there would be two. All she had to do was reach the Lake before he caught her.

Tauriel set her hands against the wounded bough again, and felt that it already healed itself. It would be fine without her, as the forest would be. She took up her bow and her blades, and set out for the gate, and whatever doom lay beyond it.

* * *

Fili was almost beginning to agree with Mr. Baggins' first assessment of adventures, save for the bit about being late for dinner, about which he did not particularly care. He'd seen Kili get injured before, both from fighting and from his own reckless inattention, but this was different. This was an orc-wound, and Oin could not aid him.

It did not help, of course, that those self-same orcs that had wounded Kili persisted in falling through the roof of the Bowman's house. Bard's daughters, lasses as stout-hearted as any dwarf as far as Fili was concerned, barraged the orcs from the position of questionable safety beneath the table, but with only two fighting dwarves – where _was_ Bofur? – Fili could only see the battle ending one way.

There was another crash, from the window and door this time, and Fili all but despaired. He was quite surprised when, instead of more orc-filth, two Mirkwood elves burst through into the house instead. He recognized them, of course. They were the Captain his fool of a brother had not shut up about, and the blond one that Fili thought might be a prince of Thranduil's own line.

With the addition of the Elvish warriors to the fight, the orcs were pressed back, one of them shouting something about how Thorin wasn't there. The blond elf followed them in hot pursuit, but the Captain hesitated, looking at Kili with such emotion that Fili felt something ugly surge inside of him. How _dare_ she?

Yet, even Thorin had fought alongside the elves during their escape by barrel. Fili had seen him save the elf prince's life, though it was probably as a matter of course, and Fili was not entirely sure either of them had noticed it. Dwarves did not customarily interact with many outside their own kind, and yet Bilbo had certainly proved himself more than a burglar-for-hire. Perhaps, once Erebor was re-established and both Thorin and Thranduil had been somewhat mollified, progress could be made.

And then Bofur was there, with the kingsfoil, and the she-elf took charge of Kili's sick bed. Fili did not need Oin's whispers to know that he was witnessing something few ever got to see. The Captain was going to save his brother's life.

"Oh, Mahal," muttered Fili. "I'll never hear the end of her now."

"I shouldn't think so, laddie," Oin replied, attempting to whisper and failing as usual. "I don't think she'll need to bend any further. The ceiling's high enough."

Fili took that to mean he ought to be grateful to have a brother at all.

* * *

The purloined horse thundered across the causeway, thought Legolas did not put spurs to its side nor urge it forward with his heels. Rather, he bid it give chase with all possible speed, and promised to do his best to ensure its safety, and so the mount ran as well as any Lake-bred horse might. Already, Legolas could tell that the creature was flagging – few normal creatures could long keep pace with a northern warg – and so Legolas concentrated on figure out what he would do next.

Focusing on what was to come kept him from dwelling too much on the immediate past. Waylaid alone as he had been, and injured, Legolas was even angrier with Tauriel than he would have been had he escaped unscathed. He could hardly believe she had chosen aiding a dwarf over him, and worse, her absence had distracted him, allowing the orc-commander to escape.

He forced himself to pay attention to the horse – to when it too would fail him – lest his wroth overcome him and he think too unkindly of his Captain. Young, for an elf-lord, and mostly untrained in magic though he was, Legolas knew how often the thoughts and deeds of his people, made in haste, brought only suffering in the fullness of time.

For now, he must track his quarry to its nest, no doubt the same foul place from which the spiders came, and learn what he could of it. Elves were immortal, freed from time, as his father was so fond of reminding him. He would be able to discuss what had transpired in Laketown with Tauriel at their leisure.

The next time he saw her, she was covered in blood that was not her own.

* * *

TBC...


	4. The Mountain and the Ash

**Chapter 3 - The Mountain and the Ash**

Kili had been raised on stories of battle and glory, as befit his station, but he learned very quickly that they were entirely the wrong stories. He'd heard all about his uncle's valiant last stand at Moria, and how his cousin had seen Hell upon the doorstep there before shutting it in the bowels for the earth to rot. In darker moments, Thorin had spoken to them of battle terror and confusion, but Dwalin had always been swift to belie his uncle's seriousness, and though Kili noticed Balin's disapproval, it was not remarked upon.

Still, it would have been handy to know that an enormous and powerful orc had sworn to obliterate Kili's whole line. He did not consider himself to be of any great importance, unless Fili should grow old without heirs as Thorin had done, and thus far his brother showed no signs of being quite as isolationist as their uncle. Nevertheless, Kili felt the information was critical enough that it ought not to have been sprung on him in the middle of the night around a campfire on the edge of the Wild.

The threat of Azog would not have prevented him from accompanying his uncle, brother, and company, of course. But he might have at least attempted to be more serious; to be more like Thorin. Had they told him when he was a badger – "Kili, your uncle has a nemesis that wants to kill you too" – he never would have shirked his arms training to play on the mountainsides of Ered Luin. Or at least that's what he likes to think.

Now, facing down an uncountable horde of orcs screaming out for his blood in particular, Kili drew cold mithril about his very soul. Gone is the caravan guard, the rapscallion nephew. The spare. Instead he was a prince of Erebor-reclaimed, and he stood ready for the field of battle. He did not have to wonder what Thorin would do, as he had done before, because he can see his uncle, his _King_, plainly in front of him. He thought it will give him strength, but it wasn't until he felt Fili's hand upon his shoulder, squeezing even through the mail, that he knew he had succeeded.

"Stay close to Uncle," Fili whispered. "Don't let Dwalin try to protect you, or him. That's our job now."

Kili nodded, his speech stolen. That is why they came, after all, though neither of them dared to say as much to any one, save the other.

The elves charged first, and even from their vantage point Kili could not tell if Tauriel fought beside her King as Kili was about to fight beside his. He did not doubt she would be close to the centre of the line, death to all who stand against her. Kili could only hope that the elf-prince would guard her back as he had done in Laketown, but Bolg is on the field alongside Azog, and Kili feared the worst.

The Men engaged, and Dain's dwarvish army, and then the fighting becomes difficult to follow. Azog rode with black bats beyond numbering in his train, and they blot out the field below. It was not until the ravens took up the cry that Kili realized there were orcs on the mountainside, and that the warriors below were about to be pinned down.

Out leapt Thorin, then, no more the mad King, but the King Under the Mountain in all his glory. He shouted and his voice rang across the valley below, calling all to him. Kili jumped too, in Fili's wake, and together they brought the axes of the dwarves to the Enemy.

There was no time, nor was there concept of space. Before he quite knew it, Kili found they had descended quite a ways, leaving retreat to the Front Gate impossible. He stood with one shoulder to his uncle and the other to the orcs. He did not even carry his bow, and was glad of it, because he would not have the space to shoot. It was axes or nothing, now, and Kili fought the way his people always have. His arms do not tire, as they did when he trained with Dwalin, and across Thorin's chest he can see the gold fire that is his brother, protecting their uncle from the other side.

A warg howled, the white matriarch, and Kili saw his uncle's great axe embed itself in her maw. She went down, legs flailing and voice whining like a dog's, but Azog kicked free of her and rose up. Thorin carried two smaller axes then, but they were meant for throwing and his reach was not great enough. Azog tore into his left side, Kili's side, and when he fell, Kili saw red rage instead of the field before him.

There were orcs all around and no hope of rescue, but Kili knew his uncle yet lived, and the foul beast Azog would not have his head. Then he stood shoulder to shoulder with his brother. He heard a cry, something about eagles, and then another cry, a closer one in Elvish, and when he looked to its source, he saw red fire and bright blades, cutting through towards him.

It all goes very slow then, like he trod through deep snow, or honey. Fili went down, and he heard someone screaming curses at the orc who cut him. It was a long moment before he realized that he was the screamer, that he was the one all the orcs turned to now.

Kili heard a roar, the impossibly loud roar of a bear pushed beyond all rage, and the orcs began to scream as well, gibbering in panic in such a way that he almost dared to hope, even as he watched Azog raise his mace once more. Tauriel was so close now. He could see her face, somehow still lit with starlight in the middle of this horrid place, so determined to save him again.

Mr. Baggins said the third time pays for all.

Kili had already had three times.

Then, there were no screams. Just lots of blood. 

* * *

He found her on a promontory overlooking the Lake, but she was not looking towards the forest as he might have done. She was looking at the stars.

"Father says the treaty with Lord Dain is nearly completed," Legolas said. "We will depart on the morrow. Mithrandir and the hobbit are to accompany us, and I believe Beorn as well."

"And what of me?" she asked. "Has my lord passed his judgement there?"

"He will not, I think," Legolas told her. "It is my thought that he will do his very best to forget it."

"Your father does not forget," she said. Her voice was already as cold and as far away as the stars.

"No," he said. "My father does not forget."

"The world is so much bigger, Legolas," she said. "We have come so far, and yet the stars are still the same. I would like to go far enough away that they change. That there are new lights in the sky."

He said nothing in reply, because if he did, he knows that he would beg to come with her. She does not want him to, and he cannot go.

"I will not lose the stars again, my prince," she said.

"I know," he said.

"Maybe if peace had been won differently. But this peace is the same as the last: watchful and untrusting. Your father will not change until he is driven to it, and I fear greatly what will drive him."

Again, Legolas was silent. Everything she had said was true. It was why she must go and he must stay.

At last she turned to him. There are tears on her cheeks, but her face was set. Her eyes shone as she kissed him, once, as she kissed the dwarf farewell upon the mountainside before they buried him in stone. Then she was gone. Legolas could find her, follow her, if he chose. But instead he returned to his father's fire, and told him that they will require a new captain of the guard.

* * *

TBC...


	5. Epilogue: The Beginnings of Peace

_Epilogue_

Faramir took his leave at last, seeking his bed as the pale light of false dawn appeared in the eastern sky. It was a faint light, still; the smoke and ruin over Mordor had not yet been cleared away entirely, but it was clear and bright, and spoke of hope. Legolas remained upon the wall, watching as the light grew deeper, and thinking of the friends who slept in the White City below, the friends who battled on, away from Minas Tirith, and of the friends who did not live to see the fighting finished.

They had sent Boromir over the falls, and Théoden would lay in state until his kin bore him back to Rohan. Háma had lain dead and hewn apart upon the shattered gate at Helm's Deep, and countless more had burned when the Westfold fell. So many had perished, or had nearly perished, before the Ring had gone to Mount Doom, before the end.

But it had ended, Legolas had seen it plainly written in the night sky, and as the sun rose he heard it singing in yellow light of day. There would be skirmishes and loss, and more black nights waited out in grief, but the darkness of the Enemy had perished in Middle Earth, and would not rise again. The Watchful Peace was over, the True Peace had begun.

There was a King come back to his people. The White City was made fast and would soon be made whole. Osgiliath would be rebuilt, and Ithilien re-peopled. Even the quiet of the Shire would endure, though the world around it would press on. Where Men walked and where Dwarves delved and where Elves waited, there would be peace.

In Ithilien, as in no other place in Middle Earth, all three would dwell together. The Hobbits will return home, of course, and no being, save perhaps the Lady of the Golden Wood, might guess what Mithrandir would next do, but Legolas would tarry here. He would see the depths of Fangorn Forest with Gimli, and then the Glittering Caves as promised, and then Faramir would be ready to welcome them, and whatever of their people they might muster.

They would all bide for a time in Minas Tirith first, however. Frodo was still weak, as was Pippin, though he denied to it all askers. They would see the King crowned and, unless Legolas had missed the mark, wed as well. All would come to the White City, now that it was at peace. The gates were broken, but it mattered not.

The light grew stronger, and with it, Legolas's sense that someone familiar was coming. It was not his father. He could feel that coldness leagues away, and as he had said to Faramir, he doubted Thranduil would leave the forest, even now. No, it was another, and even as it had when he realized that the Enemy was defeated, Legolas felt his heart grow light within his chest.

As the dawn sun broke across the Pelennor, Legolas saw at last what his elf-eyes had stayed out all night to see. A messenger from the elves ran swiftly across the ruin of the battle field. Behind her, red hair streamed over a quiver and bow made of strong Greenwood boughs, and for a moment, Legolas thought he saw a crown of stars upon her brow.

_And in the first years of the reign of Aragorn Elessar Telcontar, many Elves came to dwell in Ithilien, following a Dwarflord, an Elvish Prince, and a Captain of Men. And green did the fields grow, and green did the hills roll, and clear fell the water there. And brightly did the stars shine above.  
- - The Latter Days of the House of Éorl (translation)_

**finis**

Gravity_Not_Included, December 30, 2013

* * *

Thanks, all! See you next year for Part II.


End file.
